How to Get the Most From Your Amazon Prime Benefits

A couple of months ago, I ran across an article online that said I could back up my photos for FREE with my Amazon Prime membership. Wait. What?! I am currently paying Google $2.50 a month for online storage that I use to back-up my photos. That bit of info alone can save me $30 a year. How did I not know about this? I jumped on Amazon.com to find out what else I was missing out on. Turns out, there are a lot of benefits that I was not taking advantage of.

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I gathered a list of the current benefits, so others can take advantage of all their benefits and maybe save some money along the way. Please note that benefits can change at any time. The official Amazon Prime benefits page lists all the details including terms, conditions and restrictions.

If you don’t have an Amazon Prime membership, you can sign-up for a free trial to see if it is something you would use.

Shipping Benefits

Free Two Day Shipping – Members receive free 2-day shipping on eligible items to addresses in the continental US.

Free Same Day Delivery (by 9 pm) for Specified Metro Areas – With a $35 order of eligible items, members in eligible zip codes can receive free same day delivery when placing their order by the cut-off time (typically noon.)

Prime Now – Free 2 Hour Delivery for Select Cities – Members in eligible zip codes can have orders of select products delivered within 2 hours. This applies to tens of thousands of items including electronics, groceries, and household items. Some cities even have restaurant and local market deliveries as well.

Free Release Date Delivery – Skip the lines, and have it delivered to your door on release day.For eligible items that you order before the release date such as books, movies and video games, if you select “Release Day Delivery” in your shopping cart, your order will arrive on the release date. For more details and to read the terms, click here.

*Don’t forget to look for the Pre-Order Price Guarantee when you pre-order items. For eligible pre-order items, Amazon will charge you the lowest price offered by Amazon.com between the time that you pre-ordered the item and the end of the day of the release date.

Video, Music and Book Benefits

Amazon Channels: Prime members can upgrade their Prime Video by adding channels for a monthly fee. There is a wide range of channels available from kids and family to premium channels such as HBO. A free 7-day trial is available when you select “Learn More” on a channel.

Kindle First – With Kindle First, each month Prime members can download one of the six featured books for free. These books are offered through Kindle First before their official release date. Click here to see the featured books.

Amazon Free Time Unlimited:Amazon Free Time Unlimited is a monthly subscription that provides access to over 13,000 kid-friendly movies, TV shows, books and apps to be used on Fire Tablet, Fire TV or Kindle. Prime Members can get a free 1 month trial here.

Exclusive Services

Prime Photos: Prime members receive free, unlimited photo storage on Amazon Drive for up to 5 users. A great option to back-up your photos and free-up space on your phone. Photo storage is unlimited and video and file storage is capped at 5 GB. Click here to download the app.

Prime Pantry: Exclusively for Prime members, Prime Pantry stocks grocery, household and pet care items that are shipped for a flat fee of $5.99 per Prime Pantry box or for free with the purchase of 5 qualifying items.

Amazon Dash Buttons: These cool little buttons make your life easier. Prime members can order a button for a product that they use regularly for $4.99. When you are running low on that item, press the button, and that item will be ordered for you. Plus, the button is virtually free because you get a $4.99 credit after your first order with the button. Check out all the Dash buttons available here.

Membership Sharing: Two adults living in the same household can create an Amazon Household to share many Amazon Prime benefits. For more information, click here to view which benefits can be shared.

If you have a paid Prime membership under your personal account, you can share your shipping benefits with your Amazon Business user account. Click here for more information.

Amazon Elements:Amazon Elements is Amazon’s line of private label products available only to Prime Members. It appears that this program is just being rolled out as the only products available at this time are baby wipes and vitamins. If you would like to keep up with the new products as they become available, occasionally check back here.

Exclusive Promotions

Prime Early Access: Love a good deal? Prime members can access Lightning Deals 30 minutes early.

Twitch Prime: Prime members now get promotions for gamers through Twitch Prime. The Twitch Prime promotions rotate, so make sure to check this page often. Promotions could include discounts on pre-order games, ad-free viewing on Twitch, free Twitch channel subscriptions, and bonus in-game loot. If you have a Twitch.tv account, you can link it to your Prime account to receive your in-game and channel subscription benefits.

The Washington Post 6 Month Free Trial: For a limited time, Prime Members can get a 6-month free trial to The Washington Post National Digital Edition. For more information, visit this page.

Take Advantage of Your Benefits!

I feel like Amazon is my personal assistant. No more hauling 30 pound bags of dog food from the store, to the car, to the house. I order our dog food now. No more running a million errands on the weekends. I order a lot of the household items we need on Amazon. The prices on Amazon.com are almost always less than I would pay at the store, and I save more money by making fewer trips to Target that always end-up with me buying extra stuff I don’t need. 🙂

I love my Amazon Prime membership. For me, it is well worth the annual fee. Now, with these new-found benefits, I am even happier with my membership. If you have Amazon Prime, I encourage you to try out all these benefits to get the most out of your membership!